Top Iranian official says US and EU have not fulfilled nuclear deal

The United States and its European partners have not honored the nuclear deal reached by all parties last year because they have kept Iran out of the international banking system, a top Iranian official said Friday. But the White House reiterated that was not part of the agreement.

Valiollah Seif, head of Iran’s central bank, said during an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations that “almost nothing” has been done to make the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action functional. The landmark deal, which took effect in January, aims to reduce Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for reducing billions of dollars worth of economic sanctions.

“In general, we are not able to use our frozen funds abroad,” Seif said, according to a transcript of his remarks through a translator. “On this, serious efforts are made by our partners to make the JCPOA work. In my view, they have not honored their obligations. If, according to our partners, it is our conduct which prevents international banks engage into business with us, they were fully aboard of our conducts before signing the JCPOA. We have not changed them. They signed it just for — just for us to deliver our commitments and do nothing on the grounds that Iran is responsible for.”

Seif, in Washington for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, said that the U.S. and its European counterparts “need to do whatever is needed to honor their commitments.”

“If it means more face-to-face contacts with the international banks assuring them they do not penalize them working in Iran, if it means making changes to the laws and regulations to give access to the U.S. financial systems — allow U-turn, whatever is needed — they need to do,” he continued, referring to the banned practice of Iranians conducting business directly with American banks. “Otherwise, the JCPOA breaks up under its own terms.”

The White House replied later Friday that under the deal, Iran does not have access to the United States’ financial system, and that is not under consideration.

“The agreement that’s included in the JCPOA does not include giving Iran access to the U.S. financial system or to allow the execution of so-called U-turn transactions,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at a briefing. “And we have ruled out going Iran access to either of those two options.”

Earnest added that the United States and its partners “are committed to ensuring that we fulfill our end of the JCPOA, and that involves following through with giving Iran the kind of sanctions relief to which they’re entitled, as a result of them following through on the steps they have taken to roll back significant aspects of their nuclear program and to make clear that they will not acquire a nuclear weapon.”

Republicans have ripped into President Barack Obama over the deal, particularly its $1.7 billion payment upon implementation in January that they charged amounted to a ransom payment for American prisoners. The $1.7 billion payment settled a decades-old financial dispute stemming from an arms purchase from the U.S. in 1979 by the Iran’s last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the goods of which were never delivered because of the Iranian revolution.